A&p: The Story of the Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Company

In 1859 the Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Company known everywhere as A&P began as a mail-order business located at 31 Vesey Street in downtown Manhattan. In 1925 A&P operated more than thirteen thousand grocery stores nationwide with more than forty thousand employees. By 1950 approximately ten cents out of every dollar spent on food in the United States passed over A&P counters. A&P: The Story of the Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Company tells the story of how cofounder George Huntington Hartford and his sons John and George brought A&P to a popularity with consumers that few companies have ever achieved. This stunning collection of vintage photographs shows such nostalgic scenes as the elegant early stores their gleaming window displays and the red horse-drawn delivery wagons with the A&P logo emblazoned on their sides. Shoppers choose from rows of colorful merchandise and fresh produce; uniformed storekeepers make change from ornate registers; and the founders son tastes A&Ps Eight OClock coffee. A&P is still an industry leader and A&P: The Story of the Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Company shows why from the Hartford familys legacy to the generations of shoppers who depend on A&P for fair prices and quality food. This is the history of the supermarket where America grew up shopping.